Originally bloggded at YPP under the name A Philly Progressive on May 21, 2008
I’ve not been fond of the Clintons for a long time. It goes back to a few days after the 1992 election when I heard Bill Clinton talking about his ambitious plans for health care and I turned to a friend and said, “I sure hope he knows now to count to sixty.” It took no special prescience to see the disaster of Clinton care coming. The program was formulated in secret with plenty of experts but few congressional allies. Those experts were more intent on creating a document to satisfy their fellow wonks than in developing a plan that might attract a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. No one was surprised that the Clintons lost both the Congress and the issue. Instead of using the failure of the Congress to address the major issue of the early 1990s and elect more Democrats in the 1992 election, the clumsy dénouement of Clinton care lead to an historic loss of control of the House of Representatives.
Progressive Distaste for The Clintons
But that political disaster, as bad as it was, doesn’t quite explain the animus that many progressives like myself have felt for the Clintons since. Nor do our other specific complaints—backing down on gays in the military; the dumping of Lani Guinier, conservative welfare “reform;” the defense of marriage act; the tawdry Lewinsky scandal and its consequences for the balance of power in Congress; the declaration that the era of big government is over; the rise of Dick Morris, triangulation, and symbolic mini public policies; the slow and inadequate response to genocide in the Balkans; and the failure to respond at all to ethnic cleansing in Somalia.
Nor does that whole series of policy disappointments explain the incredible animus against the Clintons on the right. It has always seemed strange that a President who disappointed liberals again and again aroused so much disdain on the right. We were disappointed by the Clinton’s failure to meet our high expectations as well as by their continual attempt to adopt conservative themes and policy goals. So it has been difficult for us to understand why, when the Clintons seemed to have no compunctions about betraying liberalism, the right would hate them so.
A few weeks ago it finally dawned on me. The whole dispiriting Hillary Clinton presidential campaign has revealed why liberals don’t care much for the Clintons and conservatives hate them.
The Clintons are Our Nixon.
That is a harsh thing to say, and I’ve been reluctant to say it as the Democratic primary campaign has been harsh and nasty enough.
But I’m pissed enough now at Hillary’s campaign that I’ve come to the conclusion that helping us understand where we are politically is probably worth whatever anger this harsh charge generates.
Those of you haven’t read much about both Nixon and Nixon hatred may find that hard to understand.
So let me tell you what the history books say us about the man I always knew as Tricky Dick because that is what my parents called him.
Richard Nixon was the dominant elected official in the fifties and sixties. (The dominant political leader was, of course, Martin Luther King, Jr.). Nixon ran in more national elections, held office longer, and had a greater influence on our political life than any other elected official of his time. He was a smart and accomplished politician, whose abilities as a public speaker, both in formal settings and on the stump were always underrated by people on the left who ridiculed his false piety. (To see him at his best on in a formal speech, look for a video of his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in 1968).
Nixon was profoundly hated by liberals but never really trusted by conservatives. His base was mainstream Republicans, and especially, the political officials of his time who he helped into office. Similarly, Clinton is profoundly hated by conservatives but has never really been trusted by liberals. Mainstream Democrats and the political officials of his time who he helped into office are the political base of the Clintons.
Why was Nixon so hated and distrusted?
One reason was that he was, shall we say, ideologically flexible. He was one of those politicians who tried and failed to come up with a defining vision of America or public policy. So he used rhetoric both fine and cutting—his speech writers were always very good—to mask the emptiness of his ideals and his opportunistic shifting from left to right.
On economic issues, Nixon was an Eisenhower Republican, someone who accepted the necessity the welfare state. He could sound like a conservative critic of government spending and, especially in the mid-sixties, of welfare program. Or, when it seemed politically opportune, he could seek the expansion of the welfare state as he did by proposing a negative income tax that liberals should have but did not support. (He later supported a more limited version of the same idea in the earned income tax credit.) Similarly, Nixon could oppose “excessive” government regulation in principle but he signed some of our most important environmental laws, the clean air and water acts. On foreign affairs, he began as a staunch anti-communist who became a realist who was willing to engage in big power diplomacy and opened the door to the recognition of Communist China.
In other words, conservatives saw him as someone who sought their votes and sometimes appropriated their language yet betrayed their principles once in office. Sort of like how progressive see the Clintons, no?
Yet, for all of Nixon’s willingness to move the center, liberals hated him. Liberals always saw Nixon for what he was: someone with conservative instincts who would throw them a bone now and again in order to gain or hold office. So Nixon offended liberals triply—for not really being a liberal; for his pretence of moving in a liberal direction; and for his success in holding office even though he was manifestly insincere in much that he did.
Look closely and that is exactly why the right has always detested the Clintons. They offend triply—for not really being conservatives; for their pretense of moving in a conservative direction with, among other things, their welfare reform and defense of marriage act; and for their success in holding office despite their evident lack of any real political principles.
Nixon’s only claim to ideological innovation is that he brought what was then called the “social” issue into national politics. Nixon, who was a supporter of civil rights in the early sixties, took advantage of the backlash against civil rights, affirmative action and busing; against rising crime rates and urban riots; and against sex, drugs and rock and roll, to pry working class whites in the South and in northern ethnic neighborhoods from the hands of the Democrats. Liberals hated him for this as well. But some old style Republican libertarians and defenders of civil rights were not too fond of Nixon’s race-baiting politics either.
The Clintons, too, have no consistent ideology besides doing what it takes to win. Has anyone figured out what Clintonism means except moving to the left or right depending upon what the polls say? Does anyone have any idea what a “bridge to the 21st century actually means?” Can anyone say, in a sentence or paragraph what the theme of Hillary’s campaign has been?
Politically, Clinton helped Democrats gain power by defusing Nixon’s social issue. He did that by allowing a retarded man to be executed; by distancing himself from Jesse Jackson and criticizing Sister Souljah; by waffling on affirmative action; by providing funds for 100,000 new police officers; by requiring welfare recipients to work; and by signing the Defense of Marriage Act. None of those acts helped build a strong left over the long term.
Like Nixon the Clintons did some good, notably generating economic growth and jobs and expanding Nixon’s innovation, the earned income tax credit.
But as the list of progressive disappointments at the beginning of this post shows, Clinton missed opportunity after opportunity to move the country in a more progressive direction.
Clinton and Nixon’s Self-defeating Politics
Of course, given the political times in which he was President, there were limitations on how progressive Clinton could be.
But many of the weaknesses of Clinton’s presidency—like the weaknesses of Nixon’s presidency— were his own fault. Blowing the health care issue cost Democrats control over the House in 1994. The Clinton campaign of 1996 ignored Democratic congressional candidates and, as a result, cost us some seats. And the Whitewater / Lewinsky scandals hurt Democrats in Congressional elections in 1998 and 2000. Of course, the whole Whitewater mess, which led to the investigation that revealed Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky, might have been brought to an earlier close if the Clintons had much more quickly answered the questions asked of them and provided the evidence sought from them. Remember Hillary’s files magically appearing on a desk after she couldn’t find them for months? They were left there by the same magic that created the 18-minute gap on one of Nixon’s tapes.
Had Clinton not constantly undermined his own political standing—and had he truly cared about good public policy as opposed to public policy that would strengthen him politically—he might have been able to win a more progressive reform of welfare and stand up to Defense of Marriage Act.
Clinton’s propensity for undermining himself never rose to Nixon like heights. He won his trial for impeachment despite being guilty of perjury. Nixon, having committed more serious crimes, would have lost his trial had he not resigned. But while our Nixon was not as bad as their Nixon, Clinton, like Nixon, did a great deal of damage to his own political standing and our party.
Styles of Politics: Nixon and Clinton
Of course, his lack of true political conviction was not the least of Nixon’s problems. There was also his style of politics. And it is looking at his style that so many other parallels to the Clintons appear.
Nixon was shameless. There was no insinuation he would not make, no opponent’s gaffe he would not exploit, no inflammatory attack he would resist. In the 1950s he was a red-baiter only a bit more restrained than Joe McCarthy. His anti-crime rhetoric and defense of the forgotten American bordered on racism. And he was willing to use the nasty attacks launched by politicians such as McCarthy and, later, his own Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, for his own purposes. Again and again, Nixon dragged our political life into the gutter.
Anyone paying attention to the sleazeball attacks on Obama in the presidential primaries—“Obama is not a Muslim as far as I know”—can see how low the Clintons will go. It turns out that the first “black president” feels himself entitled to race-baiting.
Nixon was the first politician to run not just a campaign but a presidency based on polling and focus groups. The Clinton’s polled on everything, from where to take a vacation to what “truth” to reveal about Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky.
Nixon hated the press and, once he decided to treat it with disdain and keep it at a distance, manipulated the press and used it as a whipping boy. The Clintons also hated the press. Bill and Hillary invented new forms of media manipulation with their war room; kept the press at a distance during his presidency and has been relentlessly attacking it during the current campaign.
Nixon presented himself as a man of rectitude but tolerated sleaze and corruption when it served his purposes. He handed out ambassadorships among other perks to major contributors. He looked the other way when his subordinates or friends broke the law and stonewalled investigations of them. And he ultimately came to break the law himself. Bill Clinton presented himself if not as a man of rectitude than as a quasi-intellectual reformer very much above sleaze and corruption. Yet he looked the other way when his subordinates and family broke the law. He, too, stonewalled investigations of them. And ultimately he came to break the law when he perjured himself in court testimony. And while the impeachment proceedings were largely political theater and perhaps not high crimes and misdemeanors, Clinton did break the law and should have resigned.
Nixon frequently put on the political trappings of populism and scorned the elitists in universities and the “Georgetown set” in Washington. Bill Clinton also derided the Washington elites who, he believed, looked down on him and took refuge in the people when those elites called for his resignation. And, Hillary has again recently taken to embracing the people against “elitist” economists who called into question her gas tax proposal.
Nixon was a greedy man who exploited his political office for financial gain both when he accepted gifts as Vice President and much more so after he left office. The Clintons did the same in the way Hillary practiced law while Bill was Governor; when she was the beneficiary of investments made on her behalf by political allies; and since Bill left office.
Nixon and Clinton: Harbingers of Something More True?
The final parallel is, perhaps, wishful thinking. Nixon’s skillful use of wedge issues enabled him to hold the presidency during a liberal time. And what he taught Republicans ultimately lead to the election of a real conservative in Ronald Reagan. Reagan found the rhetoric and message that transformed Nixon’s crabbed, negative and insincere conservatism into a vision that captured the center of American politics and, in the aftermath of Carter’s failed presidency, won a dramatic electoral victory for himself and his party.
Clinton’s effort to smooth over differences on social issue—or embrace right-wing ideas— enabled him to hold the presidency during a conservative time. Can we now expect that Obama, having learned from the Clinton, will use his far more powerful rhetoric to capture the center of American politics for progressives and, in the aftermath of Bush’s failed presidency, win a dramatic electoral victory for himself and his party? And can we expect that Obama will be a much truer progressive than Clinton ever was?
I don’t think it is too audacious to hope for exactly that.